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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

I'm doing the usual year-end meme - like I did last year - which is from Biochem Belle, DrugMonkey, Short Geologist, and Lockwood. The meme consists of posting the first sentence of the first blog post of each month of the year, with the link to that post. I've done that - with a couple minor modifications - along with the photo belonging to that post. I skipped two CotAlinks, which were the first posts of several months, I skipped one Two-Years-Ago post, and one Road Song post. As Lockwood pointed out, the geoblogosphere usually messes with the rules of any given meme, so I'm just being "normal" - for a geo-type. Unlike Lockwood, I didn't post any titles.

January: Here's a Happy 2009 to everyone, with a photo of the last sunset of last year, 2008.February: The first ever Carnival of the Arid is up, hosted by Chris Clarke of Coyote Crossing.March: For this month's Where in the West, we have the above [below] famous mountain, a mountain that has more than one name.April: The third Carnival of the Arid (CotA#3) is up, over at Coyote Crossing.May: aboutgeology: @sfoxx OK, why is the Eureka Qtzite such a familiar name? What's it signify? 7:02 PMJune: I haven't done a Where in the West since March, so no doubt everyone's forgotten all about it!July: Once again, I have a few field photos from Great Basin National Park - this time of alluvial fans as seen looking down from about 12,000 feet on the shoulder of Wheeler Peak.August: It's time for Where in the West again! For the August 2009 version of WITW, we have the above [below] unknown area located somewhere in the west - that would be somewhere in the western part of North America.September: I just got back from a short trip to Caliente, Nevada. The weather was looking good when I headed down there, with temperatures predicted to be slightly lower than average, especially if clouds like these stayed around.October: Just the other day, Monday to be precise, I was walking around above town thinking about the signs of fall that were all around: dry, straw-colored bunch grass (unknown variety), yellow blooms of rabbitbrush (right foreground), golden-brown blooms of sagebrush (left middleground), and yellow to bright red aspen on the distant mountain.November: After making the unexpected turn onto Oregon Highway 62, I drove toward Crater Lake and stopped at the first pullout, the entrance to the Ponderosa picnic area (Google Maps location) - named, no doubt, for the magnificent Ponderosa pine trees that dominate the area.December: I'll be at the Northwest Mining Association meeting in Reno for a few day (NWMA), which isn't to say I absolutely won't blog, but... in case I don't, I'm posting a few ways to find this blog.

[There hasn't been a first photo in December, yet, other than the one at the top of this post. It would be rather circular if I reposted it here, so I won't.]

It's getting warmer! It's now 6 (Reno), 12 (Anchorage), and -14 (Ely), though it's actually risen to -0.8 at the house here. Snow may come to warm things up a bit, but not until this weekend it sounds like. Brrrr.

We're supposed to get into the forties Saturday, but the rain will start while the valley floor is still well below freezing in the wee hours. Saturday morning looks to be very pretty visually, but ugly logistically. This is finals week here, so it could have been much, much worse. For example, freezing rain today would have been a disaster. Cancel school and figure out how to reschedule, or stay on schedule and risk accidents and injuries?